frauke at large

After searching endlessly on the internet for a picture of one and finally giving up and coming to the conclusion that I might just have to go out and take a picture of one myself, I do feel the need to make another marketing related observation of China: 

you know how in the US and Europe branding is important? And you know how brands are displayed on almost anything that moves or indeed doesn’t move, such as lorries, vans, bus stops, even people (yes, I know shocking, but check out your clothes … chances are you are parading a brand right now). And you now how as a marketer they make you happy (err, well … moving on)? … I now know why there are no Chinese brands in the top 20 world brands (according to a Business Week special report) … Well, despite the obvious that brands should convey a certain quality and be unique to a particular organisation (and therefore not a copy of another already existing one), and the difficulty China is facing regarding brand building and the country of origin effect (which is a shame because many products manufactured here are in fact quite good)… they are not actually doing anything with regards to pushing their brands out to consumers!!! And here is where my fruitless search comes in: I was looking for a picture of a standard Chinese blue lorry* … one of which there are millions of on the streets. And the reason why I was looking for a picture was to show you: there is no advertising in China on lorries or any other major vehicles … granted there is the ‘Samsung’ boat on the river Pu in Shanghai,

 

but you need to be at the Bund to see it, and you get the occasional dedicated car driving around with a massive tv on its back showing adverts, but generally speaking, large vehicles are not used to display brands … now whether this is due to regulation, a lack of brands to splash all over lorries, or simply a lack of good marketing, I am not sure (my guess is the latter), but it makes me wonder … where are all my beautiful brands gone? And why isn’t anyone driving them around to raise brand awareness? Do people here think that it’s only worth parading brands (and indeed only international brands) in tourist spots like the Bund and Shanghai or will someone soon cotton on to the fact that in order to build a brand you need brand exposure? … Ah, so much to do, so little time …

* Picture of standard Chinese blue lorry to follow when I’ve taken one

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